Why ESLint prefer-const wants object or array defined as const? - constants

Take this lines as examples:
let c=[]
c[0]=23
and these:
let creationDate = new Date(date)
creationDate.setDate(creationDate.getDate() + daysTTL);
Both let statements will raise ESLint ERROR
Identifier .... is never reassigned; use 'const' instead of 'let'.
Is there a better way to instruct ESLint that I'm actually changing the values, or that this rules doesn't apply/fit well with structured data?
Or should I switch to const ?

actually the issue raised be ESLint is due to small difference, whereby const is used for variables that are never reassigned using the = while let for variables that will be surely be reassigned using =.
let me explain using your two examples,
the first example the variable c was not reassigned, just the value of the its element has been changed or assigned so the reassignment was not performed on c but on its element c[0]
regarding the second example, you are changing the value of a property of an object but you are not reassigning that object to another or to new.
whether to use const or let it depends on whether you will ever reassign using =.
hope this was helpful

Related

q/kdb - hitting 'constants error when adding new key-value assignments to a dictionary within a function

I am currently working on a script where within a function, key-value pairs are being added to a dictionary x - consider x as a single dictionary of different inputs used to query data, and different key-values are appended to this depending on certain conditions being fulfilled.
However, when I load in the script into my session with some new assignment logic added, I am hitting a 'constants error. This is despite all assignments being kept to this dictionary x. When these two new assignments within x are commented out, the script will load in successfully.
I know the 'constants error usually refers to the max number of constants within a certain scope being exceeded, but surely this shouldn't be happening when all assignment is happening within this dictionary x. Is there a way to get around this? What is causing this issue?
I think you are trying to do too much in one function. I think you are indexing or assigning values to the dictionary with too many constants. Below code will return the constants error:
dict:(10 + til 100)!til 100
value (raze -1_"{","dict[",/:(string[10+til 97],\:"];")),"}"
// with til 96
{dict[10];dict[11] ... dict[104]}
It's the code that is indexing the dictionary is causing the issue rather than the dictionary itself.

Trouble Understanding Xcodemath error messages

I have been working to understand why I am getting the error messages shown in the attachment.
The bottom-most message that indicates a comma is needed makes no sense to me at all.
The other two messages may well be related to a problem with data types, but I cannot determine what data type rules I have violated.
Many thanks for your time and attention.
It's a few different errors cropping up, and the error about the separator is not really indicative of the problem.
SecondPartFraction is being declared twice. If those are meant to be two different variables, they should have two different names. If you simply wish to reassign a new value to SecondPartFraction, just drop the var off the second time you use it (as is has already been declared, you simply need to refer to it again).
Doubles and Ints can't be together for division, so that error is correct. If you want to get a Double result, just change the 16 to 16.0. Then the compiler won't complain.
The numbers you're getting are originating from a textfield too, which might cause some problems. If the user enters text into your textfields, instead of numbers, the app will crash since StepFirstPart and StepSecondPart are force unwrapped. You will probably want to do some kind of Optional Chaining to handle the case where the entry is not numeric.
In the last line, the label text is being set to an Int - in order to do this, you'll have to use string interpolation instead, since the text for a label must be a string rather than a number:
TotalNumRisers.text = "\(TotalRisers)"
Just one last quick note - in Swift, camel casing is standard for naming, so the first letter of every variable should be lowercase, then the others upper. So StepFirstPart would become stepFirstPart instead.
You create the same variable twice here e.x
var x = 0
var x = value + x
instead it should be
var x = 0
x = value + x // remove var from here

What is the difference in atomic_load() and assignment?

I am working on a project that deals with lots of atomic operations. Till now I didn’t knew about atomic_load() and was only relying on assignment operator to get value of an atomic type and I haven’t seen an error except of so much of testing. Those atomic types are changed by multiple processes and threads as well by atomic_compare_exchange_strong_explicit(), so they will need an old value every time, and that’s where I always did oldValue = <Atomic_ type_variable> and it always works fine.
Is that just by chance? Should I prefer using atomic_load()?
foo = atomic_var is just a shortcut syntax for foo = atomic_load(&atomic_var);
Which itself is a shortcut for foo = atomic_load_explicit(&atomic_var, memory_order_seq_cst); That has a use-case when you want to use an ordering weaker than the default seq_cst.
The main reason for using atomic_load explicitly in your source code is probably to remind human readers that a variable or pointer is atomic. Or maybe as a part of a macro, using atomic_load(&(macro_input)) would create a compile-time error for a non-atomic pointer.
As a "generic" function, you can't take a normal function-pointer to it.
Its existence may be just to make it easier to write the language standard, and explain everything in terms of functions.
It's not the actual assignment that's key here, it's evaluating the atomic variable in an rvalue context (reading it's value as part of an expression, like you typically find on the right-hand side of an =). printf("%d\n", my_atomic_var); is also equivalent to atomic_load.
And BTW, the same thing holds for atomic_var = foo; being exactly the same as atomic_store_explicit with mo_seq_cst. Here it is assignment that's key.
Other kinds of lvalue references to an atomic variable are different, like read-modify-write atomic_var++ is equivalent to atomic_fetch_add.

Reallocate Swift Let variable

Swift question with the goal of understanding the language better:
I understand the difference between a var and let
var are mutable
let are final
I'm assuming both of these are written to the stack. Once a variable is created the object class that it stores is set. Is it every possible to change this?
let myVar = String("Hello")
// myVar.dynamicType is String
myVar.delete
let myVar = Int(123)
myVar.dynamicType is Int
Is there a way to reallocate the memory for a variable? I want to use the same variable name to mean a different thing in a different section on the code.
Identifiers in Swift (both constant and mutable), as in most other static type-checked programming languages, have a scope (see the Wikipedia entry) that defines the extent of their validity. A scope could be the body of a function, a file, a module, or just the body of a for loop. In a language like Swift, you cannot reuse the same identifier for two different values or memory cells inside the same scope, but you can do it in two different scopes. So the answer to your question is: you cannot do it in the same scope, but you can do it in different scopes. Note, however that you are not using the same memory, just the same name associated to a different piece of memory (in case of var) or a different value (in case of let).
Actually you cannot delete neither the value associated to an identifier, neither the memory itself (as it seems that you think possible in your example). This is impossible in any language that has stack allocated entities, since the recovery from the stack is automatic at the end of the current block of code.

var vs let in Swift [duplicate]

This question already has answers here:
What is the difference between `let` and `var` in Swift?
(32 answers)
Closed 8 years ago.
I'm new to Swift programming, and I've met the var and let types. I know that let is a constant and I know what that means, but I never used a constant mainly because I didn't need to. So why should I use var instead of let, at what situation should I use it?
Rather than constant and variable, the correct terminology in swift is immutable and mutable.
You use let when you know that once you assign a value to a variable, it doesn't change - i.e. it is immutable. If you declare the id of a table view cell, most likely it won't change during its lifetime, so by declaring it as immutable there's no risk that you can mistakenly change it - the compiler will inform you about that.
Typical use cases:
A constant (the timeout of a timer, or the width of a fixed sized label, the max number of login attempts, etc.). In this scenario the constant is a replacement for the literal value spread over the code (think of #define)
the return value of a function used as input for another function
the intermediate result of an expression, to be used as input for another expression
a container for an unwrapped value in optional binding
the data returned by a REST API call, deserialized from JSON into a struct, which must be stored in a database
and a lot more. Every time I write var, I ask myself: can this variable change?. If the answer is no, I replace var with let. Sometimes I also use a more protective approach: I declare everything as immutable, then the compiler will let me know when I try to modify one of them, and for each case I can proceed accordingly.
Some considerations:
For reference types (classes), immutable means that once you assign an instance to the immutable variable, you cannot assign another instance to the same variable.
For value types (numbers, strings, arrays, dictionaries, structs, enums) immutable means that that once you assign a value, you cannot change the value itself. For simple data types (Int, Float, String) it means you cannot assign another value of the same type. For composite data types (structs, arrays, dictionaries) it means you cannot assign a new value (such as a new instance of a struct) and you cannot change any of their stored properties.
Also an immutable variable has a semantic meaning for the developer and whoever reading the code - it clearly states that the variable won't change.
Last, but maybe less important from a pure development point of view, immutables can be subject to optimizations by the compiler.
Generally speaking, mutable state is to avoid as much as possible.
Immutable values help in reasoning about code, because you can easily track them down and clearly identify the value from the start to the end.
Mutable variables, on the other hand, make difficult to follow your data flow, since anyone can modify them at any time. Especially when dealing with concurrent applications, reasoning about mutable state can quickly become an incredibly hard task.
So, as a design principle, try to use let whenever possible and if you need to modify an object, simply produce a new instance.
Whenever you need to use a var, perhaps because using it makes the code clearer, try to limit their scope as much as possible and not to expose any mutable state. As an example, if you declare a var inside a function, it's safe to do so as long as you don't expose that mutability to the caller, i.e. from the caller point of view, it must not matter whether you used a var or a val in the implementation.
In general, if you know a variable's value is not going to change, declare it as a constant. Immutable variables will make your code more readable as you know for sure a particular variable is never being changed. This might also be better for the compiler as it can take advantage of the fact that a variable is constant and perform some optimisations.
This doesn't only apply to Swift. Even in C when the value of a variable is not be changed after being initialised, it's good practise to make sure it's const.
So, the way you think about "I didn't need to" should change. You don't need a constant only for values like TIMEOUT etc. You should have a constant variable anywhere you know the value of a variable doesn't need to be changed after initialisation.
Note: This is more of a general "programming as a whole" answer and not specific to Swift. #Antonio's answer has more of a focus on Swift.